This is both my personal learning project and my contribution in the struggle to confront the ongoing Republican/ libertarian assault on rational science and constructive learning, as manifested in their malicious strategic Attacks on Science ~ A collection of articles, scientific resources, plus my own essays and indepth critique of various presentations from unidirectional-skeptics ~ Hopefully a resource for the busy, yet discerning, student who's concerned about the health of our Earth

Thursday, January 26, 2017

* EM’s response: Okay, you’ve got me on this one. I did in fact confuse myself between climate science in the media vs the climate science community. I was mainly referencing outlandish claims from Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth”by relying on the Republican's outlandish PR fraudster the Lord Monckton - now that's what self inflicted delusion is all about, allow me to explain.

In this continuation of my debate with EM I have allowed him to distract me with SPPI's 35 Errors, Lies and Deceptions contrivance that their "Lord" Monckton has so successfully astro-turfed all over the internet. I will demonstrate that SPPI and Lord Monckton are in fact the malicious liars who ruthlessly politicize the science in order to confuse and stupefy innocents like my pal EM and to further their self-interested myopic and destructive agenda. Here I review points 1 through 4: sea level claims, islands drowning, thermohaline circulation slowdown, CO2 drives temps.

After my introduction

* I will first quote SPPI’s Lord M’s claim.

* Then share Gore’s relevant AIT quotes so you can decide for yourselves how honesty (or not) it was described.

* This is followed with some commentary intended to add perspective to the Lord’s spin to offer ‘the rest of the story’ regarding the issue in question.

* Rounding up the exercise I’ll include authoritative links and some YouTube videos to offer genuine learning opportunities regarding the questions raised.

“A Scientist Replies to Christopher Monckton: Abraham v. Monckton.”

Professor Abraham's presentation can be found at:

Reviewing Lord Monckton’s 35 SPPI Errors, Lies and Deceptions Regarding “An Inconvenient Truth.” (The cloned version I copied for this came from Scottthong.wordpress.)

EM quoting CC at his point 18: “You are confusing yourself, the mainstream media is not the “climate community!” Do you understand the difference between scientific projections issued within the scientific literature - and news reporters stories about that science?? That is important. Don’t you think? EM, I ask because I’d like to invite you to share these “failed predictions” of yours - but I would expect you to stick with actual scientific papers. Then we can look at those “failed predictions” and see what the failures are and what we can learn from them. How about it? You made the claims. Can you support them with objective evidence? Well heck on second thought, never mind, lets see your sources - provide whatever climate predictions you’d like. We can take it from there.”

* EM’s response: Okay, you’ve got me on this one. I did in fact confuse myself between climate science in the media vs the climate science community. I was mainly referencing outlandish claims from Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth”.

* I.e. Kilimanjaro won’t have year-round snow at decade end; no arctic left by 2013; etc.

* Even you must see the obvious scare tactics Gore uses, and in my opinion Al Gore is one of the main reasons that anyone doubts AGW at all. He was one of the first to politicize it.

* However, I don’t necessarily fault Gore’s hyperbole, because hyperbole is inherently an effective method to rally the masses around a cause.

Here’s we come to one of the roots of today’s societal failure. EM issued his self-certain insults and doubts regarding the “scientific consensus” - that is 200 years worth of cumulative scientific learning - based on the word of a political entertainer and an advocacy organization.

Namely, the Lord and SPPI’s “35 Errors, Lies and Deceptions of AIT” which make an excellent example of how Republicans deliberately disconnect from our planet’s down to Earth physical reality.

I suggest the question we should be demanding an answer to: WHY CAN’T WE HOLD SPPI’S “35 LIES” TO THE SAME STANDARDS OF HONESTY AND CHASTISEMENT AS THEY DEMAND OF AL GORE?

I myself was disappointed by AIT, but it was because Gore missed several perfect opportunities to convey a visceral sense of our planet and it’s climate system, something that would have helped people appreciate the reality and seriousness of our home planet Earth and this grand geophysical experiment we and our leaders are hell bent on red-lining.

AIT contained some unfortunate minor errors, but to charge Al Gore with “politicizing science” or “lying” is a gross reversal of what happened. Gore tried to communicate the science, he even offered references to the scientific literature he based his words on, but all that was ignored in an effort bent on destruction.

Conversely, we have the malicious tactical misrepresentations, the out and out lies and the pathetic faith-based storyline that Republicans feel so comfortable repeating at a pitch and volume calculated to out-scream all constructive dialogue - now that is the definition of rabid politicizing.

Why are Americans so accepting of that outrageous double standard?

Incidentally, what gives Republicans the right to call honestly assessing the evidence “politicizing” the discussion. This is supposed to be an educational dialogue, where learning is the objective, this is what we are supposed to be doing!

Want to find out who twisted AIT into a “politicized” mess you’ll have to look to SPPI and the notorious serial liar Lord Monckton and their contrived “35 Scientific Errors (or Intentional Lies) …” which has been cloned countless times and remains the center of faux science conferences within their echo-chamber.

Since I’m sick and tired of foolish innocents ignorantly bashing Gore’s AIT with the dishonest garbage fed to them by SPPI and their Lord Monckton - I’ve allowed EM to sidetrack me into this full-on project as an addendum. I will review Gore's 35 supposed “lies” with an eye to exposing the tactics and scientific bullshit Republicans have been feeding themselves and everyone else with such short-sighted abandon.

* I will first quote SPPI’s Lord M’s claim.

* Then share Gore’s relevant AIT quotes so you can decide for yourselves how honesty (or not) it was described.

* This is followed with some commentary intended to add perspective to the Lord’s spin to offer ‘the rest of the story’ regarding the issue in question.

* Rounding up the exercise I’ll include authoritative links and some YouTube videos to offer genuine learning opportunities regarding the questions raised.

Quoting SPPI: “Below are the 35 errors pointed out by the SPPI article, with my short summary of the actual truths behind each dishonest fib. See the full explanations at Science and Public Policy Institute..."

However, I will demonstrate that SPPI and Lord Monckton are in fact the malicious liars who politicized the science in order to confuse and stupefy innocents like my pal EM, and to further their self-interested myopic and destructive agenda. Here I review points 1 through 4.

_____________________________________________

1. Sea level “rising 6 m”

> FOUND <Even the IPCC’s maximum estimate is a mere 59cm… In the year 2100.

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Quoting Gore's An Inconvenient Truth:

“Impact of 20 Foot Rise in Sea Level”

“In 1992 they measured this amount of melting in Greenland. 10 years later this is what happened. And here is the melting from 2005. Tony Blair’s scientific advisor has said that because of what is happening in Greenland right now, the map of the world will have to be redrawn.

If Greenland broke up and melted, …”

What is being witnessed unfolding on Greenland is potent evidence that our planet is warming on a scale humanity has never experienced. Ice doesn’t melt on its own.

The second alarming lesson to take in is that if all of Greenland equals over twenty feet of sea level rise, then a lousy 10% equals two feet. Why do Republican’s want to muzzle that kind of vitally important information from the people.

…This animation portrays the changes occurring in the surface elevation of the ice sheet since 2003 in three drainage regions: the southeast, the northeast and the Jakobshavn regions. In each region, the time advances to show the accumulated change in elevation from 2003 through 2012. For more information, visit nasa.gov/icebridge.

Peering into the thousands of frozen layers inside Greenland’s ice sheet is like looking back in time. Each layer provides a record of not only snowfall and melting events, but what the Earth’s climate was like at the dawn of civilization, or during the last ice age, or during an ancient period of warmth similar to the one we are experiencing today. Using radar data from NASA’s Operation IceBridge, scientists have built the first-ever comprehensive map of the layers deep inside the ice sheet.

They aren’t. The sea levels around the Maldives haven’t changed for 1250 years. Same goes for Vanuatu.

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Quoting Gore's An Inconvenient Truth: “That’s why the citizens of these pacific nations had all had to evacuate to New Zealand.”

Okay - Big Fail on Al Gore’s part.

>>> What about the even Bigger Fail by SPPI and their Lord claiming no rise in 1250 years. Why do they get a pass? Why are they allowed to lie with impunity?

This was a bad call by Al Gore, still in a sane world we try to understand and learn from our mistakes. Many of these islands turn out to be far more dynamic than some assumed and some are actually growing. Though that doesn't mean they don't remain in harms way.

It changes nothing about the physical reality that our planet’s cryosphere is melting and that this water is flowing into the oceans. The other deniable, though inescapable, reality is that our oceans are warming, that warming causes thermo expansion and it has no where to go but up the shoreline.

Gore’s error does nothing to invalidate the observation that sea level is rising at increasing rate thanks to rapidly increasing cryosphere melting. SLR will inflict grievous damages to islands, and coastal cities, and entire ecosystems and landscapes in the coming decades and beyond. Including those islands who remain on the front line of not only sea level rise but the ravages of ocean acidification.

The World Meteorological Organization's Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) is an international mechanism for supporting all key cryospheric in-situ and remote sensing observations. …GCW includes observation, monitoring, assessment, product development, prediction, and research. It provides the framework for reliable, comprehensive, sustained observing of the cryosphere through a coordinated and integrated approach on national to global scales to deliver quality-assured global and regional products and services. …

Sea level is rising for the first time in thousands of years. Oceanographer John Englander, author of "High Tide On Main Street" explains why it is unstoppable, regardless of efforts to be 'green' and sustainable. Using powerful images, he encourages us to embrace the new reality that the shoreline is moving, that we begin to adapt, while we also try to slow the warming. It is a positive message, "a glass half full, rather than half empty" -- though the glass will get higher each decade.

Quoting Gore's An Inconvenient Truth: “The change from conditions we have here today to an ice age took place in perhaps as little as 10 years’ time. That is a sudden jump. Of course that’s not going to happen again, because the glaciers of North America are not there.”

Here again, the Lord’s claim is actually the lie. That is a deliberate, if not malicious, misrepresentation of the facts!

In down to Earth reality, increasingly detailed observations reveal the Atlantic overturn current is in fact weakening, not like back then, still scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about the stability and weather impact of this slowing North Atlantic Meridional Overturning Thermohaline Circulation current. This is not something an adult would hide from.

What’s going on in the North Atlantic?

Stefan Rahmstorf @ 23 March 2015

The North Atlantic between Newfoundland and Ireland is practically the only region of the world that has defied global warming and even cooled. Last winter there even was the coldest on record – while globally it was the hottest on record. Our recent study (Rahmstorf et al. 2015) attributes this to a weakening of the Gulf Stream System, which is apparently unique in the last thousand years.

It happens to be just that area for which climate models predict a cooling when the Gulf Stream System weakens (experts speak of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation or AMOC, as part of the global thermohaline circulation). That this might happen as a result of global warming is discussed in the scientific community since the 1980s – since Wally Broecker’s classical Nature article “Unpleasant surprises in the greenhouse?” Meanwhile evidence is mounting that the long-feared circulation decline is already well underway.

Climate scientists Mark Serreze, Michael Mann, and James Hansen commenting on the potential for a shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), in a historical perspective, based on observations, as well as on the implications.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deep Ocean Circulation in the North Atlantic and Rapid Climate Change During the Last Ice Age

Jerry McManus of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory discusses how geochemical and isotopic tracers of the deep circulation throughout the last ice age from rapidly accumulating sediments in the North Atlantic Ocean document systematic association of variations in AMOC and abrupt climate change through glaciation and deglaciation. Diminished AMOC accompanied the millennial northern coolings, including the cold, stadial, portions of so-called “Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events” as well as the extreme stadial “Heinrich events” associated with catastrophic iceberg discharges. Perhaps most notably, rapid increases in AMOC, in the form of surges in the depth and export of North Atlantic Deep Water from the North Atlantic Basin, accompanied the dramatic northern warmings that punctuated the ice age, underscoring the important potential role of internal Earth systems in climate change.

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4. CO2 “driving temperature”

> not “ found ” <It is a clear and well accepted fact that temperature drives CO2 levels.

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Quoting Gore's An Inconvenient Truth:

“Keep that in mind when you look at this fact. Carbon dioxide having never gone above 300 PPM, here is where CO2 is now (400+).”

“So if you look at a thousand years worth of temperature and compare it to a thousand years of CO2 you can see how closely they fit together.”

This is very slippery wording, dedicated to confusing and dumbing down rather than any attempt to understand the underlying phenomena. Allow me to try explaining it.

Over geologic time Earth experiences orbital and axial variations (eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession) on a roughly 100,000 year cycle that causes the amount of sun’s heat reaching Earth to vary. Our climate has been fluctuating from temperate to glacial, but very slowly.

Try to imagine our planet transitioning out of the coldest phase. The sun’s increased insolation begins to warm up the cold oceans allowing CO2

to escape into the atmosphere, thus increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, this in turn increased the atmosphere’s insulating ability. In turn, holding in more heat, warming the planet. For a more authoritative source:

… , the idea that there might be a lag of CO2 concentrations behind temperature change (during glacial-interglacial climate changes) is hardly new to the climate science community. Indeed, Claude Lorius, Jim Hansen and others essentially predicted this finding fully (19) years ago, in a landmark paper that addressed the cause of temperature change observed in Antarctic ice core records, well before the data showed that CO2 might lag temperature. In that paper (Lorius et al., 1990), they say that:

•“changes in the CO2 and CH4 content have played a significant part in the glacial-interglacial climate changes by amplifying, together with the growth and decay of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, the relatively weak orbital forcing”

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES

11/29/2016 I started this blog to debate climate science contrarians, I've done my part, they, the intellectual cowards for their part have run off and hide within their hermetically sealed echo chambers, safe to continue broadcasting more stupidity mixed with anger and hostility rather than constructive learning.

Now this horrendous election. Its changed everything and this blog, not sure where it's going, eventually I need to start another one, one less intent on futility reaching out for what ain't there and more focused on presenting a different perspective for its own sake, and to hell with the rest of it, it's too heart breaking.

I see Dec 19th as a key date. If there isn't serious focused engagement of the public in numbers that surprise everyone, well the oligarch will have their way with us.

Americans need to let Trump know from the gitgo, we do not approve of his con job and he better not get too crazy because he's earned zero good faith or honeymoon considerations. We shall see.

{edited 12/11/2014}

I know there are too many typos, what can I say, eyes aren't what they were, I get rushed, and always did have a thing with transposing…{well, I also hated high school "english" classes... bad call that one.}. Doing the best I can with what I got. Embarrassing though it is, it's better than doing nothing. Besides, it's the issues and reasoning that we should be worrying about.

Though I'm in my own little world here, I'm also constantly learning and evolving and do get occasional feedback and when I reread stuff and find errors or omissions or garbage, I fix it. If it's major I'll acknowledge it with an 'edited' note, minor stuff I don't bother.

~ ~ ~

I hardly keep track of Anthony's latest antics (besides, with Sou on the job why bother - can't beat her insights). It's just me over here and I have more important things to do with my precious hours - still now that Anthony's luster has been wearing thin he's put his energy into discovering and honing new fresh faces to carry on the public show of the Republican/Libertarian strategic attack on science.

He seems to have transitioned into a ring-leader, perhaps mentor/coach would be better, producer? At least that's how Mr. Steele and his antics of the past year has gotten me to think about it. So in that regard this blog remains about WUWT's brand of thinking and logic and my struggle to understand the anatomy of the fraud they've perpetrated against mankind. {December 2014}

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ok, now some recommended websites:

This blog was started in April 2013 and is written by an actual scientist so it has a refreshingly serious objective air to it, plus he does a good clear job of explaining complex issues.

Tamino, an acknowledged statistical/mathematical expert of the highest order, at Open Mind also does an excellent job of holding Anthony’s feet to the fire with clearly explained facts and math. Check it out:http://tamino.wordpress.com~ ~ ~

And of course, there is the excellent, most up to date internet depository of climate studies and information for the non-expert public.

Then there's RealClimate.org the scientist's commentary site. Run by working climate scientists intended to help the interested public and journalists sort through the complexities of the climatology. They provide "quick response to developing stories and provide the context" that is too often missing from public media's depiction. {But, you better be serious and have some real science education/understanding under your belt if you want to keep up.}

I remember back in da day, good websites/blogs were few and far between. But over the past years that's been changing to the point that it's impossible to keep up with them all. Here's an incomplete, and long overdue addition to my above list: